This is one in an occasional series about how government agents cause or heighten animosity among people in society. See the previous parts.
The chief duty, it seems, of post politicians is to insert themselves where they are not wanted or wanted by only a few; they act, then, affecting everybody. They do so to preserve their own existence. In this pursuit, the political class is not below dividing people into groups and pitting them against each other.
Imagine another of Aesop’s fables for a moment, taking the cat for a politician. I reprint The Eagle, the Cat, and the Wild Sow:
An Eagle built her nest at the top of a high tree; a Cat with her family occupied a hollow in the trunk half-way down; and a Wild Sow and her young took up their quarters at the foot. They might have got on very well as neighbours had it not been for the evil cunning of the Cat. Climbing up to the Eagle’s nest she said to the Eagle, “You and I are in the greatest possible danger. That dreadful creature, the Sow, who is always to be seen grubbing away at the foot of the tree, means to uproot it, that she may devour your family and mine at her ease.” Having thus driven the Eagle almost out of her senses with terror, the Cat climbed down the tree, and said to the Sow, “I must warn you against that dreadful bird, the Eagle. She is only waiting her chance to fly down and carry off one of your little pigs when you take them out, to feed her brood with.” She succeeded in frightening the Sow as much as the Eagle. Then she returned to her hole in the trunk, from which, feigning to be afraid, she never came forth by day. Only by night did she creep out unseen to procure food for her kittens. The Eagle, meanwhile was afraid to stir from her nest, and the Sow dared not leave her home among the roots: so that in time both they and their families perished of hunger, and their dead bodies supplied the Cat with ample food for her growing family.
For the purpose of this analogy, let us consider any of many politically charged issues, say, reforming Social Security. The eagles might represent the elderly and disabled who have come to rely on checks from politicians, who are entirely reliant upon tax revenue from the pigs toiling below. The eagles and pigs, who had been amicable, became frightened by the unfounded claims of the cat; by turning on each other, they failed to recognize their real and common enemy, who devoured them all in the end.
Let us be vigilant against the scaremongering of politicians! Let us, sow and eagle alike, recognize our real and common adversary in the political class. Let us expose their empty words for what they are. Let us take away their vehicle to cause irreparable harm to us all: the involuntary state. Ecrasez l’etat!
